Slow Path, Swift Feet
by Starr Bryte
Summary: When she had stepped off the TARDIS for the last time Sarah Jane's life had stopped. Seeing The Doctor again, finally getting her proper good-bye it feels as if her life is finally starting. Career goals, check. Daft tin dog, check. Well, better thirty years late in figuring out the rest of your life than never. Pre SJA with copious amounts of TW and DW. Rating pending.
1. Path Diverged

**This is the first fic I've written in a VERY long time so bear with me if it's a little weird. I recently became a Whovian and I'm trying to make up for nearly forty years, 26 seasons, two spin-offs, two movies, and numerous specials worth of lost time. **

**In Classic Who I'm nearing the end of Season Two with the First Doctor and in New Who I've just started Series 4 with the Tenth Doctor. So keep your spoilery comments to yourself. Speaking of you should check out my friend Fogdragon23's fic "Not Your Average Doctor" it's REALLY good.  
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**Please enjoy!  
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So the first thing she did when she got back to her building, K-9 all wrapped up in his blanket and whirring away as he downloaded information and updates from various satellites and random people's cell phones, was to contact her landlord and say she planned on moving. The sooner the better and good riddance too. She had gotten the flat because it had been cheap and close to UNIT. She could've stayed at headquarters until she had gotten her feet but she had felt hurt and impatient and it was supposed to be temporary. Supposed to be. Nearly thirty years later and temporary had gotten pretty permanent and the landlord had gotten pretty insistent. Who knew learning how to booby-trap a room could come in so handy when an unreliable skinflint had the master key and wanted in your knickers?

The next thing she did, while typing up her report, one foot drawn up to her chest and K-9 trundling around her flat, cataloging as he chirped and beeped away to himself, a welcome presence to the usual silence, was call up her contact at UNIT.

"I ran into The Doctor today." She said without preamble, cellphone wedged between ear and shoulder, her fingers typing away at 92 words per minute no spelling errors. She had gotten good at this over the years, splitting her concentration. She knew what she wanted to type, had written it up in her head on the way back her fingers just now catching up, and having a perfectly pleasant conversation and one that would be one of the more important conversations she would be having in her life.

There it was, all laid out. Her job as liaison for UNIT and The Doctor and the Rest of the World still stood. They had missed her, the old fogeys, and tales of her exploits were legendary to the raw recruits terrified of the unknown they were supposed to protect the world from. Her name meant something in UNIT still and the potential for it to mean more was still there, waiting for her to do something with it. All she had to do was go out there and do what he would have done. The Doctor, her Doctor, and his TARDIS. She was her own person now, separated them both but never alone, and she would go wherever she was needed. Because that was the lesson the TARDIS kept trying to teach to everyone who stepped through her doors. She wouldn't take her passengers and wayward captain just anywhere, she took them to where they were needed the most. To put right all the wrongs of time and space.

But right now what she needed most was herself, to be herself, to re-find that stubborn little slip of a human that had found herself way in over her head half-way across the universe and managed to build a place for herself there. Pull herself together again and see what she could do. She had stopped living the moment she realized he wasn't coming back. She had survived but what was survival with nothing to live for?

She couldn't go back in time but she could pretend. She was good at pretending just like The Doctor was good at running. Pretend that he had just left her in bloody Aberdeen and that she had pulled a stiff upper lip and moved on. Plans that she had thought long stillborn rose to the forefront of her brain. She had money from her articles; saving accounts that had accumulated over the years; currency from hundreds of alien planets and from times long past that were worth a fortune now, a farewell gift the TARDIS had slipped into her bags like the good mother she was and didn't that just make her heart ache all over again; her payroll and stipends from UNIT they had been saving for her, waiting for her to come back or at least make a decision.

She talked to the Brigadier, she still had his extension number, talked until she was hoarse and he had fallen asleep on the other end, his snores vibrating pleasantly in her ear. About what had happened, how she had felt, what she wanted to happen now. She hung up with a fond, "Good night, Brig." and looked over to K-9 who had ceased his meandering and was staring at her in that way he had that let her know he had been listening. Just like old times when himself wouldn't give her the time of day and she desperately wished for someone to talk too who could at least answer back in a language she could understand.

"What do you think?" She asked, saving her work and rolling her shoulders to get the kinks out.

"About what, Mistress?" The little dog chirruped. She thought for a moment. She hadn't talked to anyone in such a long time. Taking this moment to think almost hurt she had been moving so fast for so long, running in place with no where to go.

"Rose." She said, the name popping out without her really meaning to. Her jealousy at Rose wasn't because the girl was standing at The Doctor's side and she wasn't, he was a social creature and she had hypothesized that he would die of loneliness if left by himself. Not that she wanted to test that. No. It was because Rose had the type of relationship with The Doctor she had been unable to manage in all of her years with him. It was so physical and open and so purely unconscious on both their parts, as if to hold her hand or touch her was as natural as breathing. How had Rose, the lucky girl, managed to so totally wrap a being like The Doctor, who was controlled and influenced by no one, around her little finger like that?

"I did not become acquainted well enough with Rose Tyler to form an opinion, Mistress." K-9 answered, breaking her from her musings.

"From what little you saw what can you say?" She asked. K-9 was silent, even the lights in his eyes stopped their blinking, as if he were listening to something only he could hear. He was silent for so long she began to worry he had broken down again.

"He needs her." K-9 suddenly answered, his voice losing it's light tone, dropping the habitual 'Mistress'. For a moment his voice was different. It sounded like him, her first Doctor. Smooth, patient tones with a lightness she had missed. She stared at her daft little dog as he raised his head to look at her, the way The Doctor had looked at her when he had something to say that very much needed saying and very much needed to be heard.

"What did you say?" She whispered, leaning forward.

"He needs her." K-9 repeated patiently, "He needs her, will need her, always need her."

"Why?" She asked, just a seriously, "While he may need to travel with someone, he's rubbish on his own, but why her? Why Rose?"

K-9 trundled closer as if departing a great secret, his voice now sounding more like her first Doctor than ever before, crackling as if the mere act of speaking was putting pressure on his speakers.

"The things in the dark are hungry, and Time will always strive to take care of it's own." She shivered and hugged her knees to herself her mind flashing back to her Doctor's darker moments. When he seemed so lonely and lost and just plain tired. Those times after they had gotten reacquainted, after the regeneration, and suddenly a barrier she never knew had been there between them had disappeared. He would sit down next to her and wrap the ends of his long scarf around her and it would almost seem as if he were trying to protect her. Maybe that was why he had regenerated so big and tall, to protect her from the things he couldn't control. His deep, deep voice rumbling through her bones as he pulled her as close as he dared, almost into his lap, his coat surrounding her protectively.

"_There are things in the dark, Sarah Jane, hungry things that eat the world. You can't hear them or feel them but they exist beyond the veil of the Rift, screaming through the Void. Sometimes I think they're waiting for me. Maybe someday I'll step outside the TARDIS and there will be nothing but the swallowing darkness... Like a wolf made of stardust and endings, howling in the night, ever hungry to be let in. And that frightens me, Sarah Jane..."_

"Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?" She whispered, echoing fearfully what she had said so teasingly back then. He had looked down at her and smiled his tooth bearing smile as he leaned down from his great height to murmur teasingly into her ear.

"_And who says I'm not, Sarah Jane? I may just eat you up one day..."_ She had laughed then and jostled him, snuggling closer into his side, cherishing the rare closeness and vulnerability he hardly allowed to slip out.

"_Come off it!"_ She had said then, _"You're not a wolf! More like a cuddly teddy bear!"_ She would take advantage then, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him as tight as she could until his heartbeats echoed in her ears and his large hand would awkwardly land on her back as if measuring how small she was compared to him. If the adventure had been dangerous, if the threat of losing her had been great, he would sometimes hold her in his arms wrapped together in his huge coat, her head tucked under his chin and she would feed him Jelly Babies and talk about nonsensical things and he would sometimes murmur secrets into her hair that she couldn't hear, but feel as the syllables were pressed into her head. She had never felt so safe, so needed. Sometimes she would dream of wolves made of stardust and endings too, their lonely howls echoing through the dark, crying for someone to hear.

"Mistress?" K-9 chirruped loudly, as if he had been on repeat for awhile, getting louder each time.

"Yes?" She jumped, shaking herself a little to dislodge the memory. It had been years since she had even thought about those memories, pained by grief and loneliness. But now she knew. He was alive and as happy as he could possibly be doing what he did best with someone that wasn't her. But that was alright, she approved of his choice wholeheartedly for the way she made him smile, "I'm sorry K-9, my mind was elsewhere."

"It has been eighteen hours, twenty-two minutes forty-six seconds since Mistress last ate or slept. May I suggest sustenance and then retiring for the evening?" The little metal dog suggested, his tail up expectantly.

"Yes." She answered, rubbing her eyes, "Yes, of course, good idea..." She quickly finished off her article and saved her work, nearly complete and awaiting proofing, tidied up what she could at the moment, made a list of what she needed to do the next day, ate some cold takeout from the night before and got ready for bed.

Her flat was rather cluttered with boxes and filing folders, the only furniture had come with the place and even then they weren't what she would call comfortable. More like vermin colonies. For the first time since she had moved in Sarah Jane looked around herself in dismay. They had been right, her friends at UNIT, this was no way to live. It was all so temporary. She had been waiting for so long she hadn't been able to take care of herself the way she needed to. She felt a wave of homesickness for the TARDIS where everything was in it's place and everything had a place, so neat and clean and comfortably lived in. She was never what one would call a neat freak but she shivvered at the sudden wave or revulsion and itched to start packing. But K-9 was right. Sleep and food first, not in that order.

Hadn't she told The Doctor time and time again that if you wanted to take care of anybody you first had to take care of yourself?

He would usually smile at that and gently tilt her head up with a long finger, leaning down to smile at her half mocking, something deep in his eyes conveying the importance he placed on his words and making her dizzy with want.

"_But why would I do that when I have you to do it for me, Sarah Jane?"_

"Because you're a daft old man who can't drive worth an Arakinnian's gall-sack and you let the TARDIS do all the housekeeping for you. I was only there to make sure you cared enough about yourself not to die..." She muttered, brushing her teeth a little more violently than necessary. She looked over at K-9, who sat in the doorway watching her expectantly.

"I'm glad you're here with me K-9." She said, crouching down to put a hand on his head, "I've missed you ever so much."

"As I have missed you, Mistress."

Even though he was just a daft metal dog she still laid out a rug beside her bed and covered him loosely with his blanket as he went into standby. Even though the flat was completely silent she could still barely hear the electric hum that accompanied K-9 wherever he went. It reminded her a bit of the TARDIS, the low muted ambiance that was always there in the background, just at the very edges of the mind. It was comforting and for the first time since she had stepped off the TARDIS in Aberdeen she felt like she was home. Safe in a way she hadn't felt in a very long time. K-9 was there. Her closest link to The Doctor and the TARDIS. It was as if a tension that had been building up since he left had vanished and she was finally able to relax into sleep.

That night she dreamed of wolves made of golden stardust and endings, singing their lonely song to the dark.


	2. Impossible Thing

**First off I'd like to apologize to all of the commas and semi-colons I'm about to murder but this is Doctor Who and casualties are bound to happen. Secondly I am in love with Sarah Jane's clothes. Thirdly I don't own Doctor Who nor do I own the cherry covered apron. That one's Everfire's. Please enjoy and review, I'll take all the help I can get with this one.**

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He was always in the console room when she bounced or flounced or glided to him in the mornings, or as close to what could be called morning on a ship with no sense of day or night, all exuberance and wearing a new outfit the TARDIS had dressed her in. The ship was developing a strange obsession with playing dress-up with her and in fits of girlish glee she threw herself headfirst into the game as well as the wardrobe. They were traveling to strange times and places! Who cared what she wore as long as it held some semblance of being easy to run in and wasn't made of uncomfortable materials. Like chiffon. Or wool. Or that one weird material from Dykala IV that was actually symbiotic (and it had been terminally embarrassing when she realized her knickers were sentient and turned colors according to her moods. And glowed bright enough to be seen through her clothes no matter what she wore; unfortunately for her and the pale blue skirts she had been wearing that day, not that she had known and he had never said until it was too late. Granted they had been handy when they had been lost in that cave but that was besides the point!)

He was staring off into space, again, like he usually was. He had been doing that more and more often as of late. Like he was struggling to see something just out of sight. Sometimes he would brush those moments off and they would race into the unknown together with his big tooth-bearing smiles and endless supply of jelly-babies. Sometimes they would cling to him, weighing him down with uncertainty and it was almost a guarantee that he would be watching her sleep that night, as if she didn't know when he was doing that; one of those times he was going to stare a hole in her head. His shoes had already imprinted into the carpet permanently and the TARDIS refused to erase them, much to her private delight. She wanted to see if the carpet would actually start wearing away from the pressure of his feet.

She was wearing something that looked like a garden of giant daisies had exploded all over it and included a poofy skirt that ended above her knees and a white leather apron covered in cherries. The knee-high stockings had little knitted patterns in the shape of bananas with bright yellow calf-high galoshes and included a truly outrageous lacy parasol with cutouts that made it look as if the TARDIS were flying through a star field of cherries and bananas and countless other ridiculous things. She figured the TARDIS was aiming for silly and seeing his expression she could see why. Everything clashed horribly and she was still deciding if she felt contrary enough to wear it outside if he commented. Then again it didn't seem to matter what she wore it always got her into trouble one way or another.

"I had that dream again last night." She said airily by way of greeting, almost skipping into his line of vision. He blinked once and then again as if he were trying to bring his mind back to the present instead of wherever else he'd been seeing. As if that wherever else had burned itself into his retinas like a nightmare that refused to fade.

"Indeed?" He asked, curiously only giving her a cursory double take just to make sure she was wearing what he thought she was wearing, "And what dream is that?" An interest in what she had to say even if it was vaguely abrupt and nonsensical? A double take with a raised eyebrow at her clothes? The day was looking up.

"You know the one!" She poked him lightly with her parasol, and he dodged away, spinning around to the other side of the console before fussing with some controls, his head cocked toward her to show he was listening, "It was all dark, but the dark was filled with colors and there was a very faint singing in my head, as if it were coming from very far away..." She trailed off, not wanting to break the tenuous mood. It was a common dream, one she'd had since she and the TARDIS had first started to get to know each other. When she had fully acknowledged the ship as a female presence and started sharing her troubles and woes in the privacy of her room and the TARDIS started giving her signs of acknowledgment. She was beginning to wonder if the dreams weren't her mind hearing the ship on a subconscious level because while the Doctor could hear things she couldn't, no matter how hard she concentrated, there was only so much background telepathy a human mind could take before it started adapting and expanding and using all that space that was usually ignored by normal humans. At least that was her theory. Either that or she was starting to go just the tiniest bit mad.

"And?" he prompted, fiddling with a lever in a distracted manner, shaking her out of her thoughts. She bit her lip for a moment. While the dream itself wasn't scary or bad, it had a feeling of melancholy and that was the last thing she needed to share with him. She hated it when he was depressed or worried or brooding or any other emotion that wasn't smiling or curious or triumphant. She would rather have him hopped up on orange Jelly-babies and tea with too much sugar running away from an angry mob with her dangling over his shoulder still tied up in twine, gagged with a gentleman's necktie about to be forcefully married off to a scabby old alien merchant from the year 7032 on the planet Zarkor than have him depressed and distracted. So she turned, gave him her most sweetly brilliant smile, the one that made the corners of his mouth rise upward despite himself and swayed side to side, making the skirt of her strange looking dress swish about her legs in a way she knew was distracting and adorable.

"I think the song is getting louder." She said, "And if I hear it enough times soon I'll know it by heart. I predict it'll get stuck in my head and I'll end up singing it to myself without my noticing at the most inopportune times, just you watch!"

"I should like to hear that." He replied, smiling back and making his eyes crinkle up. She bit her lip shyly and turned away, fussing with the apron that really didn't need to be fussed with.

"Oh, not with my horrible singing voice..." She muttered self-consciously.

"Oh really?" He was leaning against the console with one hand staring at her with a peculiar expression, "And here I thought your rendition of 'My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean' was rather charming." She turned to stare at him wide-eyed as her face slowly began to turn the same color as the cherries on her apron.

"Really?" She squeaked. A deep rolling chuckle that always made her toes curl and her head tingle escaped him and he looked away to punch a few buttons and turn a knob on the console.

"Really." He answered, his voice muffled with mirth, "In an off-key sort of way of course."

Well then she just had to smack him with her parasol, damn him and his infuriating laughter, as they materialized and she marched resolutely out into the unknown, snapping said lacy, ridiculous monstrosity of a sunshade open and, decidedly, not looking in his direction until he stepped close enough to offer her his arm in silent apology for laughing at her. She made him wait a good ten seconds before accepting. And then she stole his hat.

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Wakefulness came immediately. Like the spaces of darkness that happens when one blinks. One moment she was arm in arm with him, her Doctor, scarf dangling precariously around him and at times around her, the parasol doing little to block out the sun and giving her strange tan lines on her neck and face that he spent the next three days tracing with his fingertips in his moments of unabashed emotional defenselessness and had been horribly disappointed when they faded; and the next she was awake, lying in her bed in her little flat that felt more like a prison now, K-9's alarm beeping insistently at her along with his unignorable pipings of,

"Mistress. Time to wake up, Mistress."

It took her a moment. One breath in, deeply, to take in the air of her flat. One breath out to dispel it and the lingering smell of alien flowers and grass and plant-life and himself so close to her and forever so far away.

She blinked away the visions of the dreams and sat up to stare down at her one faithful companion.

"Good morning, K-9."

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Breakfast was plain toast and tea with K-9 protesting the lack of sufficient nutrition in her diet and her blowing him off with a promise of fruit from the grocers on her way to UNIT HQ to file her report and pick up the paperwork she had spent the last twenty odd years ignoring.

She could have had it all done electronicly. They had the technology now to do it. She didn't have to make an appearance. But she suddenly wanted to. Just like she suddenly wanted out of that shabby, too-small flat. Just like she wanted to really move forward with her life. It didn't matter where so long as it was forward and away.

She left K-9 behind, hooked up to her computer with a list of ideas of what she wanted out of a new home for them. He would be kept occupied for hours like that. She had no doubt that when she returned he would have a list of houses and realtors to look at and would be playing online chess. She feared for the sanity of all those unsuspecting so-called 'serious players'. Maybe she could get someone to hack the website and set them up with some kind of consolation prize. K-9 was almost as bad as the Doctor if he had nothing to occupy his time and she liked her set up the way it was. At least he didn't have opposable thumbs. She doubted her poor appliances, such as they were, could take it and most of it belonged to the Landlord anyway.

Her paperwork had been filed in the Doctor's abandoned office, her file had been triplicated to all the higher-ups so it took no more than saying her name and the adjacent code number they had given her all those year ago for the receptionist to wave her through. They had kept it for him. They had waited for him just like she had waited. Everything was just as he left it, just as she had left it. Kept clean and free of dust and the touch of time. From the framed pictures on his desk of his former selves and former companions to the abacus on the window sill to the scales on the side-table. Even the corner the TARDIS had sat in for so many years still had indents from where she had settled into the floor.

It was almost too much to bear. She had changed so much that looking at this room that was full to the brim with him and her and them made even the happy memories nearly painful to look at. Without a thought she walked over to the perfect square where the time ship had sat, plunked herself down into the exact center, pulled her knees up to her chest so she fit perfectly within that square and closed her eyes.

If she concentrated she could imagine the faint hum that had been a near constant background noise for so long she heard it in her sleep. If she cleared her mind she could hear the faint sound of singing that had permeated her dreams. If she really, truly closed out the rest of the world she could feel the ship all around her, emotions and feelings and sense-of-self so alien and familiar and vast. If she clung to all that she could pretend, for a moment, that she wasn't alone.

They say when one grows up the world makes sense. That when one finds their niche in life everything is as it should be. That when one grows up there are no more confusing questions to ask or self-doubt about the future.

Whoever said that was lying through their teeth. She was just as confused and lonely and restless as she had been all those years ago when her one true home and one true family had left her behind. In bloody Aberdeen and she was never letting that go, never never never for as long as her atoms existed, and since the TARDIS had bioscans of her going back to when she had first stepped through those doors that was going to be the random equivalent of forever and then some. Holding onto that petty little grudge helped her move past the bigger, more painful fact that he had left her behind at all and never returned.

It had hurt then and it still hurt now. Over 200 years for him, maybe longer he was always trying to gloss over his actual age, six entire lives. He had blown it off so casually as if it didn't matter. That his suffering didn't matter. It was frightening to think about. Not just the number or how much time had passed, but that he had died six times. Suffered six times. Loved and lost six times. Maybe that was why he had never come back for her. Regeneration had always been dangerous, and a mind like his had always been a fragile thing, especially so cut off from the people who should have been able to help him, keep him safe and whole through the transition. Not random humans and aliens and what-not who hadn't even been told this was possible and only had his garbled and confused instructions to go by. They had never been enough to keep the memories locked inside him, they had blown away as he had changed and locked in the filing cabinet of his mind; probably labeled as unimportant, he was forever attempting to be a creature of the now. No matter where or when now happened to be at the moment.

He had probably forgotten her. She could believe that. She had seen the extreme changes in the TARDIS and knew that the poor ship had probably been forced to jettison as many rooms as possible just to stay functioning at some intervals. And the console room itself looked like it had been ripped apart and then put back together with wire and duct tape and whatever else could be salvaged in the aftermath of disaster.

He had said there had been a war.

Everyone had died.

Everyone?

The look on his face when he'd said it. So carefully blank, so carefully detached. So absolutely alone now.

A whole planet. An entire race of people who lived so far outside of what was considered 'normal' in the universe they couldn't even be considered a part of it just gone.

She couldn't wrap her mind around something that big, she didn't even want to try. Just trying to get the where's and when's right in her head it had been too long since she had been able to speak with proper tenses.

The door to the office opened and she tensed, still curled up in that perfect square. She looked up as a technician entered the room and rummaged through a stack of folders on a side table before pulling out one and staring at it a moment.

"File E3A, the effects of compound #B37 on experiment #3674..." The very plain looking man with the name tag "Gil Spencer" muttered as he turned around and she held her breath as he stared right at her without seeming to see her. His eyes moved slightly to the right and were slightly unfocused, as if she were no more important than the very ugly carpet she sat on.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he continued to meander about the office, putting back files that had been taken out, retrieving experimental data the Doctor had started but never finished.

"Hello?" She ventured softly. No response. He didn't even twitch. She sat up straighter, curiosity beginning to take hold.

"Hello?" She said again, louder this time. No response. She scooted until she was kneeling at the very edge of the perfect square.

"Hello!" She called loudly, waving her arms. He turned around, having found what he was searching for and left, passing by so closely she could have reached out and touched him. As the door clicked shut she leaned back on her heels.

"Huh." She murmured to herself, "Curiouser and curiouser..." She almost didn't notice the faint but ever increasing whining noise until the filing cabinet nearest to the desk exploded into a cloud of dust and light and a familiar, beloved voice she had accepted she would never hear again; excepting those strange, rare and dangerous moments when he'd cross his own time line, echoed though the large office.

"**Voice activation and code words verified: Smith, Sarah Jane "Curiouser and Curious said Alice". Key note, location verified bioscan data corresponding with dormant TARDIS remnants imprinted via perception filter, scan complete."**

She coughed and curled up into a ball as the dust slowly began to settle, the cleaning staff was going to have kittens when they saw this new mess, but then again considering whose office this was at least it hadn't ACTUALLY exploded. She'd heard the stories and witnessed a few herself. The man had been a menace with cleaning supplies. Or with anything really.

Blinking rapidly to clear her eyes she blurrily looked up at the image standing before her and scarcely dared to believe. Hadn't she just spent the last night dreaming of him? Thinking about him? Reminiscing about times she could never go back to again even if she had taken him up on his offer?And now...

The holographic image standing in front of her adjusted his scarf awkwardly before giving her that slow tooth bearing, eye-beaming, heart-melting, adrenaline pumping, breath-taking beautiful smile.

"**Hello, Sarah..."**


End file.
